The Laramie Project and The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later by Moises Kaufman

The Laramie Project and The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later by Moises Kaufman

Two classic plays in a single volume: One of the most-performed theater pieces in America about the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard and the town in which it happened, joined by an essential and moving sequel to the original play.

"A terrific piece of theater, history, and life.... Nothing short of stunning.... A theatrical and human event." --New York magazine

On October 7, 1998, a young gay man was discovered bound to a fence outside Laramie, Wyoming, savagely beaten and left to die in an act of brutality and hate that shocked the nation. Matthew Shepard's death became a national symbol of intolerance, but for the people of the town, the event was deeply personal. In the aftermath, Moisés Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project went to Laramie and conducted more than 200 interviews with its citizens. From the transcripts, the playwrights constructed an extraordinary chronicle of life in the town after the murder.

In The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later, the troupe revisits the town a decade after the tragedy, finding a community grappling with its legacy and its place in history. The two plays together comprise an epic and deeply moving theatrical cycle that explores the life of an American town over the course a decade.

The Laramie Project's chief writer, Leigh Fondakowski, has been a member of the Tectonic Theatre Project since 1995. She was nominated for an Emmy for her work on HBO's rendition of The Laramie Project and cowrote The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later. The People's Temple, a drama based on the survivors' interviews, has been presented at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, American Theatre Company, and the Guthrie Theatre under her direction.